Miniature II. Beyazit

This is the name given to the art of producing very finely detailed small paintings. In Europe in the Middle Ages handwritten manuscripts would be decorated by painting capital letters red. Lead oxide known as minium in Latin and which gave a particularly pleasant colour was used for this purpose. That is where the word miniature derives from. In Turkey the art of miniature painting used to be called nak or tasvir with the former being more commonly employed. The artist was known as a nakkaş or musavvir. Miniature work was generally applied to paper ivory and similar materials.